Monday marked the second anniversary of the July 28, 2012, break-in at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

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By Darrell Richardson/The Oak Ridger

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By Darrell Richardson/The Oak Ridger

Posted Jul. 30, 2014 at 4:43 PM

By Darrell Richardson/The Oak Ridger
Posted Jul. 30, 2014 at 4:43 PM

Monday marked the second anniversary of the July 28, 2012, break-in at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

And the three protesters currently serving prison terms for their part in breaking into what was for many years referred to as the “Fort Knox of uranium” have released a lengthy joint statement defending their actions.

Stating they acted humbly as “‘creative extremists for love’ to cite one of our most important and revered leaders, Martin Luther King Jr.,” the Plowshares protesters say “it was never our intention to harm our country.”

“We three Transform Now Plowshares consider it our duty, right and privilege to heighten tension in the ongoing debate of Disarmament vs. Deterrence because history has repeatedly taught us that the policy of deterrence doesn’t lead to security, but rather to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“During our trial,” the statement claims, “the U.S. prosecutors and the U.S. courts accused the wrong people when they claimed that we violated the law, because what we did was to make America’s citizens aware of egregious preparations for mass murder.”

“Two years ago,” the protesters stated, “as we neared the building in Oak Ridge, we were extremely surprised by the ineffectiveness of the system that supposedly guarded our nation’s most important National Security Complex. We believed that we were about to expose the source of unfettered violence that has led to the chronic spiritual and economic decline in the U.S. … As it turned out, it was the laxity of the security system at Y-12 that caught the attention of the courts and the mainstream media.

“There was no mainstream acknowledgement that the national security complex is rotting from its own irrelevance. … We three are incarcerated because we stood up to a nuclear weapons industry that is kept thriving by the interlocking and obsolete institutions that subscribe to the long-discredited notion that law and security can be enforced by ever-greater force.”

The protesters are jailed at three different prisons in three different states, but reportedly collaborated on the four-page second-anniversary message released by 84-year-old Rice, a Catholic nun incarcerated at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Dentention Center.

Meanwhile, Walli reportedly is being held in the McKean Federal Correctional Institution in Bradford, Pa., while Boertje-Obed resides at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan.

On Wednesday morning, Aug. 6, the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance has scheduled a “names and remembrance” ceremony — an annual event — across from the entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex. The ceremony is purportedly being held to “remember the destruction of Hiroshima.”

Page 2 of 2 - “On August 6, 1945, the United States destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, with the world’s first nuclear weapon,” the OREPA states on its website. “It is important that we bear witness to this atrocity in Oak Ridge; the atomic bomb Little Boy was fueled with highly enriched uranium produced at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.”

OREPA states next week’s ceremony will begin at 6 a.m. and continue until 9 a.m. with a “time of silence at 8:15 a.m., the time of the detonation of Little Boy.”

“You can come for all or part of the reading,” the OREPA website states. “We take turns reading a page from the book of remembrance and hanging peace cranes. Participation in the reading is entirely voluntary — you can come to simply join us in a vigil of witness if you choose.”

A news article picked up and distributed by The Associated Press last week indicated that when protesters show up at the Y-12 Plant this year, facility security won’t be as hospitable as in the past. Following the July 2012 breach, the government erected a new security fence blocking access to the plant’s sign and front yard.

The security fence was constructed of galvanized-steel barricades tied together end to end, and the National Nuclear Security Administration said that was a temporary measure until it could construct the more-typical boundary fencing with barbed wire.

NNSA spokesperson Rebekah Nwangwa said the government still intends to build a permanent barrier, “but we’ve not formulated any specific plans at this time.”

The OREPA pursued legal measures to bring the fence down, but those efforts proved unsuccessful. Ralph Hutchison, the group’s coordinator, said OREPA hasn’t given up its effort and stated he still hopes the NNSA will decide to take down the fence voluntarily — saying it was a “stupid” idea to put the fence up in the first place.

At recent protests, including a weekly Sunday vigil at Y-12, “peace activists” have gathered in a small area off the shoulder of a road directly across from the plant’s main entrance.